On Working and life

I'm going to say something slightly inflammatory designed to grab your attention but I will bring it back around. Give me just a moment. This is also going to be rambling and probably not make much sense. I will likely make several logical fallacies and/or errors. I am not prefect

I do not love working. I reject this idiom that we grew up with that. "If you find a way to get paid to do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life."

I don't want to get paid to bite into perfectly toasted piece of handmade sourdough bread. For spending a lazy Sunday afternoon on the couch with my dog. For spending a Saturday at the track with my friends. Seeing my nephew open another Lego set Christmas morning. That first bright blue clear and crisp fall day in Virginia. Feeling The grip of my wife's hand slacken as she falls asleep.

These are the things I love. These are the things that stir passion that make me cry. Even if it was possible to get paid for doing them I believe that I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't want pureness of the joy and the beauty of the moment to be tainted by money. I am a passionate person. I Love my friends and family and hobbies and animals and wife. I love feeding people making them smile. I love being there for people when they need me. I do not love work. I work so that I can love. I will work hard because I love hard.

Now if only there was a way, a method or device by which we could divorce the need to make a living from the products or services we provide…hmmm. Anyone have any ideas?

I'm not sure if it's a useful thing to think about, but I often think about what I would do if I didn't have to earn a living. I don't just mean if I was independently wealthy or didn't have to worry about money because of generational wealth or something. I just mean that If we lived in a world where most people didn't have to spend most of their time and structure their entire lives around simply covering the first two levels of Maslow's Pyramid, what would we do? What would happen if some people just…did that? Probably nothing good which is, I suppose, why we don't just stop working. However I have considered what life might be like if I just disappeared into the woods one day.

I digress. I try to work hard so that I can play hard, cook hard, love hard. But if, on any given day I am out of motivation or really not feeling well enough to "Strive and struggle" to "make a difference" or "have an impact"…well sometimes I think that's just ok. This is not my company, this is not my start-up, it's barely my career. Honestly, I don't care that much about it.

Which kinda dovetails into my next point. Which maybe should be its own article entirely, we'll see. I am so f-ing tired of life on the road. Excuse me while I winge for a bit. I am tired of being in the car. I am tried of looking out of this windshield. I am literally sitting in my car right now procrastinating driving to my installation today, a 276 mile round trip skirting DC…it's not going to be fun. Next week I am leaving on Monday driving to WV, working there Tuesday morning, then driving to Buffalo, working there Wednesday morning, then driving to North Western VA, working there Thursday morning and then coming home… Also I am so god-damned tired of eating in the car (or on the road). I bet I eat >50% of my meals away from my own home, my own kitchen, and my wife, and most of those meals are literally eaten in the car. I am so tired of not being able to have a real routine other than seeming chaos. I am exhausted, and it's not getting better.

I am endlessly grateful for my career and what it has afforded me and my family but it has stagnated. For the last 5-6 years my salary has barely stayed ahead of inflation. In the last year I've had a couple of extremely promising interviews for jobs that would get me out of the field. Both of them fell flat for me.

I wish this post had some grand revelation, some point to make. It doesn't, this is basically it. I am tired of working. I don't like that we have to keep doing it. I understand why, and I am (probably) going to keep doing it. But I am not going to be shy about hating it.

I asked a question earlier: What would I do if I didn't have to "work"? I think I would make stuff. I would grow and cook my own food. I would build things in my shed. Maybe I would work on/enjoy cars again. I'd probably sit on the porch and drink whiskey and smoke cigars a lot. But maybe I'd get into sewing, or archery, or basket weaving. Maybe I'd try my hand at painting, or take singing lessons. Maybe I'd disappear into the woods and live as long as I could off the land. I don't think I'll ever really know…and to some extent that hurts a little and it reminds me of these lyrics

~ Corey